Page:Homo-sexual Life by William John Fielding (1925).pdf/9

 the opposite sex being present in rudimentary form—are readily observable. In the male, there are the vestigial breasts and nipples, and other rudimentary features less prominent; and sometimes a general feminine contour of body is noticeable in the male.

The most feminine of women have a growth of colorless hair, called the "lanugo," corresponding to the male beard. If the woman has a larger proportion of masculine chemistry in her make-up, this hirsute growth may be quite prominent; and in some cases very pronounced, as in the instance of the bearded ladies who exhibit themselves in shows and circuses. Women with a more or less definite masculine cast of figure, movement, manner and voice are commonplace;—as is the opposite phenomenon —effeminate men.

The psychological phases of bisexualism parallel the physical. We might even go farther and state they are more in evidence than the physical, as they are subject to modification by environmental influences to a degree far exceeding the physical.

As was observed in the opening paragraph of this chapter, the individual may suffer a retardation or fixation at any stage of the sexual development, which holds him back into another and more primitive psychical and emotional level, which he has chronologically outgrown.

All infants and small children are autosexual, and evidence a sexual interest in their bodies. Sometimes this is true in only a slight, almost casual, degree; other times it is pronounced, and becomes a problem. There is often a ten-